A Simple Rebellion Read online

  “He could be a dognapper and you don’t care,” Bob chuckled. “You’re a shameless Milk-Bone ho.”

  He turned to the folding table of Blu-Rays. “And I’m supposed to be equally thrilled about these?”

  Jeremy raised his hands, palms out. “Here’s my idea; if you want, we’ll give them out free to your neighbors — ask them to decide whether all the extras make repurchasing the movie worthwhile. If they say yes, you do the appearances.”

  “No,” Bob said.

  “Please, Bob,” Jeremy pleaded. “Winston Miller’s really pissed. I could lose my job.”

  “Pop can give them out, use them for coasters, whatever, but we are not using my neighbors as beta testers.”

  “Does this mean you’ll do the appearances?”

  Bob put his groceries into the shopping baskets attached to the back of his bike. “The deal was all of this for a minute. Time’s up.”

  Jeremy’s eyes actually filled with tears, his breath jerked shakily in and out of his chest, his lip quivered. He noticed Steve with his tiny head tilted up, eyes closed, leaning into an apparently epic brush massage. “S-Steve’s not f-finished yet! C-can we keep talking?”

  Bob folded his arms, pissed that Jeremy was making him feel bad for not wanting to do the whore tour. “Go,” he said.

  “Okay, goodgoodgood,” the young executive was scrambling, and Bob let him flounder. “All we need to do is figure out what would make you comfortable.”

  “Staying at home makes me comfortable.”

  “Great! We can have them interview you in your home!”

  “Not unless they want to get shot.”

  “But, but … you’ve always said you’re a pacifist.” “My neighbor Merle is not.”

  “Um.” After a moment, a bit of the old hotshot surfaced. “We’ll have to bring the sheriff, then.”

  “That would be Merle. Not a huge fan of mine, but he holds to the law.”

  Jeremy’s façade collapsed, eyes welling anew. “What would you prefer then?

  “I prefer to be left alone.”

  Jeremy’s voice cracked, desperate words tumbling out. “And I’d love to do that for you, Mr. Murphy, I really would, but I have college debt coming out my ass, loans my parents cosigned because they love me and I was too naïve to understand that the sonofabitch banker was mortgaging my family’s future, betting we wouldn’t be able to pay it off. And my parents are not going to lose the house they slaved to own because of me! I’m sorry, but they are not. And all I’m asking, Bob

  — Mr. Murphy — Sir — all I’m really asking is for you to allow yourself to get chauffeured to some TV studios, allow your fans to adore you just one more time, and share some memories of one of the highlights of your professional career.”

  “I know that’s what you think you are asking for—” Jeremy cut him off. “Am I really that far off base? Are you worried about being rusty? You’re funny with

  me all the time.”

  “Different kind of funny.”

  “This is my life on the line here! I don’t get this done, I get fired. I get fired, I can’t pay my loans. I can’t pay my loan, my parents lose their home—”

  Bob shrugged again. “I’ll pay off your loans.”

  An impressive fury exploded from the young man. “I DON’T WANT YOU TO PAY MY BILLS! I DON’T WANT MY PARENTS TO PAY MY BILLS! I WANT —FOR ONCE IN MY GODDAMN LIFE — TO ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING ON MY OWN!”

  The words echoed out across the quiet streets. A few lights went on in windows. Bob and Jeremy and Giovanni and Steve froze in the awkward aftermath.

  Pop came out of the store. “Everything all right out here?”

  Bob spoke quietly, taking one of the Blu Rays. “These are yours to give out to whomever still has a player. No catch. Or you can use them for skeet practice.”

  Pop tapped the movies. “Been meaning to get in some shooting.”

  Bob tipped Giovanni. Then secured the newly fab Steve into his basket at the front of the bike. “You ready, Handsome?”

  Steve preened a bit.

  Bob straddled the mutated two-wheeler. He glanced at Jeremy. “I’ll think about it,” he said, and then pushed off, pedaling down the street toward home silhouetted in the rising sun.

  Chapter 15

  SANDERSON DIDN’T TAKE LONG to get back to Miller with a report. “Ain’ much,” he said, hunching his shoulders in a “whuddoya want from me” attitude. A hacker specializing in obtaining personal information, he projected his findings across a wall in Miller’s office. “Bob Murphy’s activity over the last few years,” Sanderson said.

  Bike routes. Interior shots of Bob’s home. Video of Steve running around the back yard. Ignored email accounts. Activity sheets for Twitter, Facebook, other social-media sites, all but one unused by Bob himself. Shopping lists and bills from Pop’s.

  “He’s practically off the grid,” Sanderson shrugged. “Has a presence online that is maintained by some law office in LA, but he has never interacted with any of it himself. Tortures that rookie his film company sends out to him on the regular, never agrees to anything. Hasn’t posted anywhere since his wife kicked. This guy is DOA.”

  Miller shot him a look.

  Sanderson smirked, proud of his acronym. “Dead Online Always.”

  Miller studied the wall, pouring over documents and details. “Always?”

  Sanderson smirked. “Except for FaceTiming with

  his grandkids.”

  Miller grinned, punched a number into his phone. “Send up Gus from Tech. No, it’s gotta be Gus.” His smile widened. “Sanderson, you’re a gift from God.”

  Sanderson ginned like a raptor. “’Ain’ much’ is usually enough.”

  Chapter 16

  STEVE AND BOB ARRIVED home in time to prepare for a visit from the local handyteen and his precious sidekick — a highpoint of their social schedule.

  A few years back, Sheriff Merle’s son, answering to Merle Junior at the time, had come around looking for work. Bob “hired” the boy to pull weeds in the spring and rake leaves in the fall. The rates increased as the years passed (it started at a dollar and a plate of cookies), as did the challenges of dealing with the boy as he mutated from a cute kid into … many other things.

  The consistently best part of this particular business arrangement was his sidekick — an adorable little girl. When they first started coming over, Mary Angeline instantly fell in love with the then three-year-old Perri. Bob suspected it was a cheap childcare scheme on the part of that wily Sheriff Merle, but Mary Angeline loved having them over, so Bob let it slide. Later he discovered Merle’s wife had left them, which made Mary Angeline Perri’s only female role model, another

  reason to embrace their time at the Murphy house.

  Mary Angeline and the baby bonded over a mutual love of flowers, inspiring his wife to start a garden, which they worked on together during each visit. Perri’s pigtails bounced as she watered everything

  with a sprinkler can Mary Angeline bought for her. Everything. More than once the little darling had watered Bob’s work boots if he was careless enough to leave them on the porch steps.

  After Mary Angeline passed, the pair kept coming around, the boy using the excuse that Perri wanted to keep the garden going in Mary Angeline’s memory. As the girl wasn’t more than five at the time, Bob suspected there were other reasons but he was too shattered to challenge anyone on anything. Perri ordered supplies from him by announcing, “We’ll need new seeds soon, and fresh dirt (she meant soil). That’s how Aunt Mary always did it.”

  Every time she invoked Mary Angeline as aunt, Perri got anything she wanted. Bob took to writing down shopping lists from the itsy bitsy boss, especially when she spoke to him with her hands on her hips, head tilted slightly to the right — Mary Angeline’s “all business” posture.

  The embers of Bob’s life glowed a bit brighter every time Perri looked at the results, nodding her little angel face in approval exactly as Mary Angeline use
d to.

  The son’s presence on Bob’s property, however, seemed to piss off the sheriff. One day, he suggested Bob was trying to lure his boy into the house for nefarious purposes. After a furious exchange, Bob said the kids never went into the house, preferring the porch and the garden, but if the sheriff wanted to upset Perri he could keep them away.

  That knocked the authoritarian accusation out of the law officer’s voice. “Look, I know it’s bad with your wife gone,” he muttered. “Been hell for us since Wilma took off with ... on her own adventures. Merle Junior

  has been suffering the most. Blames himself for her leaving. Confused him all to hell.”

  The two men looked at Sheriff Merle’s children in the garden; Perri, eight-years-old then, kneeling and digging delicately in her “gardening outfit” – Mary Angeline’s red rubber boots (too big for Perri, but Bob could never tell her no about anything), a blue jumper with the white polka dots, Mary Angeline’s old gardening gloves (which went up over Perri’s elbows), and the bandana Mary Angeline had given her, tied around her soft curls just as Bob’s beloved had taught her.

  Steve sat by her whenever Perri did her gardening. Now 16, Merle Junior still stood guard over his sister, handing the little one seeds upon command. But the changes he’d undergone had been numerous and

  dramatic.

  “Merle Junior ain’t been Merle Junior for going on three years,” the sheriff said. “He was Mu’Laluth for while during his H.P. Lovecraft phase, and then Merna during an … ah … experimental phase. Now he insists on being called … well you know.”

  “I’ve been here for all of the changes,” Bob acknowledged quietly.

  “Phases,” the sheriff insisted, looking a hundred years old, exhaling slowly before speaking. “I was FBI before this job. I’ve taken down drug cartels, and terrorists, and serial killers … but … I can’t understand my own son.”

  The sheriff glanced at Bob and then moved his eyes quickly away. “Maybe an outside influence might get him to … find some balance.”

  Sheriff Merle nodded to himself, exhaled, nodded

  to Bob, and then hurried off, the situation somehow resolved.

  So the kids were allowed to work Perri’s garden on Bob’s property, which was going to happen today. And that meant one thing.

  Thanos, scourge of the galaxy, was coming. To clean out Bob’s gutters.

  And maybe find an Infinity Stone.

  Chapter 17

  BOB PUT THE GROCERIES away, tossed the purloined copy of Monster Cop on the couch, and set to whipping up French toast.

  He turned on the small TV in the kitchen. The All- American News with Bling Holston was on National News. She was coiffed beyond any logic and spoke with detached importance. “Yet another weakling teacher has taken his own life, Los Angeles police report.”

  Bob took out specially ordered wheat and rye bread he had waited a month for, eggs, butter, and cinnamon. Onscreen, Bling turned to another camera angle, comporting herself with even more importance from this vantage point. “Pathetically, Adam Nelson was found hanging, with a suicide note scribbled sloppily on an otherwise promising American Way catalog. The catalog is sent to schools across the nation. In it, companies generously help American Way High School English teachers, actually providing lesson plans for

  this privileged part-time profession.

  “According to his principal, Nelson’s copy was opened to a model lesson plan offering this great essay question: ‘What would Romeo and Juliet order from this catalog to be among the best dressed in their kingdoms during their torrid romance?’

  Blingshookherlushlocks, luxuriouslydisappointed.

  “Prospering business leaders were doing his job for him, and this guy had problems? Give me a break.

  “This Nelson joins other classroom failures in death, including another English teacher from Plark Auto Parts High School in Utah; all that whiner had to do was have his students answer, ‘What car would Claudius buy for Hamlet to help him get over his father’s death?’ Boom, done, and these losers complain.

  “Good riddance, I say,” Bling declared.

  Bob had the stovetop going, heating his favorite pan as he mixed the eggs and added some milk.

  Onscreen, the stunning blonde turned to yet another angle and another important expression. “President Bo Statler said that his stand on the situation continues.”

  The screen cut to Bo. “If we’re honest with each other,” he said, nodding compassionately, “this merely is a weeding out process for substandard educators. While it is heartbreaking and our condolences go out to the families now burdened with explaining this shameful act to the students, I’d have them remember that raising the next generation of True Americans is sacred work for which there is no higher calling. Not everybody is fit to teach our beloved children. I’d suggest to those students upset by the loss of this one to go see the football couch and get some pads. That surely helped me in my time as an All-County High School All-Star. It can help you too, kids.”

  Bob dipped rye bread into the batter. The egg- soaked bread hit the buttered pan with a sizzle. He flipped the bread slices as Mary Angeline had taught him. She was always so much better at it, he thought, better at everything. Bob slid the French toast onto plates, in a hurry now, calling out Mary Angeline’s

  greeting for them as he placed the food on the porch table. “Ready or not here comes company!”

  Indeed, Thanos, the Terror of Titan, slouched toward Bethlehem.

  So did Perri.

  Actually, she was skipping.

  Chapter 18

  IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO offer anything to Thanos because he was above all, but if he arrived when a hot plate of food was already on the porch table, he tended to claim it as tribute to his sovereignty.

  Such was the fate of the first batch o’breakfast.

  Thanos strode onto the porch wearing a faded purple shirt featuring a “self-portrait” across the entire front; a wide face with a malicious grin, an actual skull in the illustration’s jet black eyes. Bob recognized the art style as belonging to Jim Starlin from way back in the trippy 70’s. Cool. The human head that rose out of the top of that shirt, however, was distinctly unthreatening. Pale skin was pierced at the lip and the nose and multiple times along the left ear. His ginger hair had long since been dyed purple, because, you know, it struck fear in the hearts of the pathetic human race.

  He sat with skinny legs set too far apart, toothpick arms circling the food with the swagger of much thicker and more terrifying limbs. He offered the smallest of chin nods before taking what was rightfully his, with lots of butter and syrup.

  Perri tended to eat later, after her work was done. She preferred cotton candy-flavored ice cream with chunks of Reese’s Peanut Butter cups and gummi bears, or had years ago when such treats had been

  available and Mary Angeline would feed them anything they wanted. These days it was toast with jelly.

  Bob responded to Thanos’ greeting with a solemn nod, delivering another plate of French toast to the table in case the one-time god of the universe was still hungry. He immediately returned to the kitchen and fed Steve to give the space warlord time to decide. When he got back to the porch two of the three additional slices of French toast were still on the plate. Thanos was digging into the other triumphantly.

  With a cheek full of calories, the Terror of Titan benevolently indicated Bob was welcome to the remaining scrapes. “Join Thanos.”

  Bob sat, fought back a smirk. “You are too generous, my lord.”

  “Today we conquer your festering outer defenses,” Thanos announced.

  This was how Thanos approached chores, as enemies to conquer. Whatever cleared the gutters, bro. “Will the great Thanos be utilizing his flying throne or more earthbound elevation techniques?”

  “The latter will suffice.” “Ladder it is,” Bob confirmed.

  They munched for a while and then Thanos got down to business. “What do you request of Thanos, the Firs
t? Know whom you address. You are in the presence of the Great Warrior!”

  From her garden, Perri patted the soil lovingly and spoke almost in singsong. “Oohhhh great warrior! Wars not make one great. Teeheeheeheeheeheeheee!”

  Bob did a double take. “Did she just quote Yoda?” “I’m teaching her culture,” the teen said, grinning,

  and momentarily dropping the façade. Then he turned

  to Perri, his defensive persona back in place. “Do you require my assistance, youngling?”

  “Not yet.”

  The boy turned to Bob, “Voice your request, Earthman, before your better decides she requires the aid of Thanos.”

  “My lord, the request is that you climb up a ladder and clear out all the leaves and gunk clogging the gutters all around the house.”

  The boy shoved the last of Bob’s French toast into his face, “Fihunnr.”

  “Nope, not worth five hundred.” “Die.”

  “Not today,” Bob chuckled. “Twenty-five dollars or I do it myself.”

  “Fall and die, frail ancient mortal.” “I’m still pretty nimble for a geezer.” “Your life is forfeit to Thanos!”

  “My life is forfeit to Thanos every time you come around here.”

  “As it should be.”

  “How come Steve’s life is never forfeit to Thanos?” “The dog has style.”

  Bob nodded his agreement, tossing Steve a treat. “So, are we going to get to work or is Thanos in a union?” “Silence, whelp, or Thanos will lay waste to your

  soul!”

  “Too late, kid.”

  The unexpected darkness from Bob threw the ruler of the galaxies off his game. The teenager emerged again, concerned. “You okay?”

  “Good question,” Bob answered, nodding slowly until a wiggle of his eyebrows got them laughing.